
Bass "R VAa 3 5" 

Book *£% \\ o 
1831 



/ 

HINTS 



ON 



EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHI 



M 



By HENRY WARE, Jr. 

Professor of Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral Care 
in Harvard University. 



Maximus vero studiorum fructus est, et velut praemium quoddam 
amplissimum longi laboris, ex tempore dicendifacultas. 

QUINCT. 



THIRD EDITION. 



BOSTON : 

HILLIAF.D, GRAY, LITTLE AND WILKINS. 

1831. 






James Loring, Printer. 



CONTENTS. 



Preface v. 

CHAPTER I. 
Advantages of Extemporaneous Preaching 1 

CHAPTER II. 

Disadvantages — Objections considered 37 

CHAPTER III. 
Rules 63 



19. 



PREFACE. 



It is the object of this little work, to draw 
the attention of those who are preparing for the 
christian ministry, or who have just entered it, 
to a mode of preaching which the writer thinks 
has been too much discountenanced and despis- 
ed ; but which, under proper restrictions, he is 
persuaded may add greatly to the opportunities 
of ministerial usefulness. The subject has hard- 
ly received the attention it deserves from writers 
on the pastoral office, who have usually devoted 
to it but a few sentences, which offer little en- 
couragement and afford no aid. Burnet, in his 
Treatise on the Pastoral Care, and Fenelon in 
his Dialogues on Eloquence, have treated it 
more at large, but still very cursorily. To their 
arguments and their authority, which are of 
great weight, I refer the more distinctly here, 
because I have not quoted them so much at 
large as I intended when I wrote the beginning 
of the second chapter. Besides these, the re- 
marks of Quinctilian, x. 7. on the subject of 
speaking extempore, which are full of his usual 
good sense, may be very profitably consulted. 



VI 



It has been my object to state fully and fairly 
the advantages which attend this mode of ad- 
dress in the pulpit, and at the same time to 
guard against the dangers and abuses to which 
it is confessedly liable. How far I may have 
succeeded, it is not for me to determine. It 
would be something to persuade but one to add 
this to his other talents for doing good in the 
church. Even the attempt to do it, though un- 
successful, would not be without its reward : 
since it could not be fairly made without a most 
salutary moral and intellectual discipline. 

It is not to be expected — nor do I mean by 
any thing I have said to intimate — that every 
man is capable of becoming an accomplished 
preacher in this mode, or that every one may 
succeed as well in this as in the ordinary mode. 
There is a variety in the talents of men, and to 
some this may be peculiarly unsuited. Yet this 
is no good reason why anij should decline the 
attempt, since it is only by making the attempt 
that they can determine whether or not success 
is within their power. 

There is at least one consequence likely to 
result from the study of this art and the attempt 
to practice it, which would alone be a sufficient 
reason for urging it earnestly. I mean, its prob- 
able effect in breaking up the constrained, for- 
mal, scholastic mode of address, which follows 



Vll 



the student from his college duties, and keeps 
him from immediate contact with the hearts of 
his fellow men. This would be effected by his 
learning to speak from his feelings, rather than 
from the critical rules of a book. His address 
would be more natural, and consequently better 
adapted to effective preaching. 

Boston, January, 1824. 



To this third edition have been added sev- 
eral notes, and a few paragraphs in the third 
chapter. 

Cambridge, November, 1830. 



HINTS 



ON 

EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHING. 



CHAPTER I 

It is a little remarkable that, while 
some classes of christians do not tolerate 
the preaching of a written discourse, others 
have an equal prejudice against all ser- 
mons which have not been carefully pre- 
composed. Among the latter are to be 
found those who favor an educated minis- 
try, and whose preachers are valued for 
their cultivated minds and extensive 
k owledge. The former are, for the most 
nart, those who disparage learning as a 
qualification for a christian teacher, and 
whose ministers are consequently not ac- 
customed to exact mental discipline, nor 
familiar with the best models of thinking 
and writing. It might seem at first view, 
that the least cultivated would require 
the greatest previous preparation in order 
profitably to address their fellow-men, 
and that the best informed and most ac- 
1 



customed to study might be best trusted to 
speak without the labour of written compo- 
sition. That it has been thought otherwise, 
is probably owing, in a great measure, to 
the solicitude for literary exactness and ele- 
gance of style, which becomes a habit in 
the taste of studious men, and renders all 
inaccuracy and carelessness offensive. 
He who has been accustomed to read and 
admire the finest models of composition 
in various languages, and to dwell on those 
niceties of method and expression which 
form so large a part of the charm of lite- 
rary works ; acquires a critical delicacy of 
taste, which renders him fastidiously sen- 
sitive to those crudities and roughnesses 
of speech, which almost necessarily attend 
an extemporaneous style. He is apt to 
exaggerate their importance, and to ima- 
gine that no excellencies of another kind 
can atone for them. He therefore protects 
himself by the toil of previous composi- 
tion, and ventures not a sentence which he 
has not leisurely weighed and measured. 
An audience also, composed of reading 
people, or accustomed to the exactness of 
written composition in the pulpit, acquires 
something of the same taste, and is easily 
offended at the occasional homeliness of 



diction and looseness of method, which oc- 
cur in extemporaneous speaking. Where- 
as those preachers and hearers, whose 
education and habits of mind have been 
different, know nothing of this taste, and 
are insensible to these blemishes ; and, if 
there be only a fluent outpouring of words, 
accompanied by a manner which evinces 
earnestness and sincerity, are pleased and 
satisfied. 

It is further remarkable, that this preju- 
dice of taste has been suffered to produce 
this effect in no profession but that of the 
ministry. The most fastidious taste never 
carries a written speech to the bar or into 
the senate. The very man who dares not 
ascend the pulpit without a sermon dili- 
gently arranged, and filled out to the 
smallest word, if he had gone into the pro- 
fession of the law, would, at the same age 
and with no greater advantages, address 
the bench and the jury in language alto- 
gether unpremeditated. Instances are not 
wanting in which the minister, who ima- 
gined it impossible to put ten sentences 
together in the pulpit, has found himself 
able, on changing his profession, to speak 
fluently for an hour. 

I have no doubt that to speak extern- 



pore is easier at the bar and in the legis- 
B, than in the pulpit. Our associa- 
tions with this place are of so sacred a cha- 
racter, that our faculties do not readily 
pla) thei e *h their accustomed freedom. 
There is an awe upon our feelings which 
constrains us. A sense, too, of the im- 
portance and responsibility of the station, 
and of the momentous consequences de- 
pending on the influence he may there ex- 
ert, has a tendency to oppress and embar- 
rass the conscientious man, who feels it 
as he ought. There is also, in the other 
cases, an immediate end to be attained, 
which produces a powerful immediate ex- 
citement ; an excitement, increased by 
the presence of those who are speaking 
on the opposite side of the question, and 
in assailing or answering whom, the em- 
barrassment of the place is lost in the in- 
terest of the argument. Whereas in the 
pulpit, there is none to assault, and none 
to refute ; the preacher has the field en- 
tirely to himself, and this is sufficiently 
dismaying. The ardor and self-oblivion 
which present debate occasions, do not 
exist ; and the solemn stillness and fixed 
gaze of a waiting multitude, serve rather 
to appal and abash the solitary speaker, 



than to bring the subject forcibly to his 
mind, or cause his attention to be absorb- 
ed in it. Thus every external circum- 
stance is unpropitious, and it is not strange 
that relief has been sought in the use of 
manuscripts. 

But still, these difficulties, and others 
which I shall have occasion to mention in 
another place, are by no means such as 
to raise that insuperable obstacle which 
many suppose. They may all be over- 
come by resolution and perseverance. As 
regards merely the use of unpremeditated 
language, it is far from being a difficult 
attainment. A writer, whose opportuni- 
ties of observation give weight to his 
opinion, says, in speaking of the style of 
the younger Pitt — " This profuse and in- 
terminable flow of words is not in itself 
either a rare or remarkable endowment. 
It is wholly a thing of habit ; and is ex- 
ercised by every village lawyer with vari- 
ous degrees of power and grace."* If 
there be circumstances which render the 
habit more difficult to be acquired by the 
preacher, they are still such as may be sur- 
mounted ; and it may be made plain, I 

* Europe ; &c. by a Citizen of the United States. 
1* 



think, that the advantages which he may 
thus ensure to himself are so many and so 
great, as to offer the strongest induce- 
ment to make the attempt. 

That these advantages are real and sub- 
stantial, may be safely inferred from the 
habit of public orators in other profes- 
sions, and from the effects which they are 
known to. produce. There is more natu- 
ral warmth in the declamation, more ear- 
nestness in the address, greater animation 
in the manner, more of the lighting up of 
the soul in the countenance and whole 
mien, more freedom and meaning in the 
gesture ; the eye speaks, and the fingers 
speak, and when the orator is so excited 
as to forget every thing but the matter on 
which his mind and feelings are acting, 
the whole body is affected, and helps to 
propagate his emotions to the hearer. 
Amidst all the exaggerated colouring of 
Patrick Henry's biographer, there is 
doubtless etioi 25b that is true, to prove a 
power in the spontaneous energy of an 
excited speaker, superior in its effects to 
any thing that can be produced by writ- 
ing. Something of the same sort has been 
witnessed by every one who is in the ha- 
bit of attending in the courts of justice, 



or the chambers of legislation. And this, 
not only in the instances of the most high- 
ly eloquent ; but inferior men are found 
thus to excite attention and produce ef- 
fects, which they never could have done 
by their pens. In deliberative assemblies, 
in senates and parliaments, the larger por- 
tion of the speaking is necessarily unpre- 
meditated ; perhaps the most eloquent is 
always so ; for it is elicited by the grow- 
ing heat of debate ; it is the spontaneous 
combustion of the mind in the conflict of 
opinion. Chatham's speeches were not 
written, nor those of Fox, nor that of 
Ames on the British treaty. They were, 
so far as regards their language and orna- 
ments, the effusions of the moment, and 
derived from their freshness a power, 
which no study could impart. Among the 
orations of Cicero, which are said to have 
made the greatest impression, and to have 
best accomplished the orator's design, are 
those delivered on unexpected emergen- 
cies, which precluded the possibility of 
previous preparation. Such were his first 
invective against Catiline, and the speech 
which stilled the disturbances at the thea- 
tre. In all these cases, there can be no 
question of the advantage which the ora- 



8 

tors enjoyed in their ability to make use 
of the excitement of the occasion, unchill- 
ed by the formality of studied preparation. 
Although possibly guilty of many rhetori- 
cal and logical faults, yet these would be 
unobserved in the fervent and impassion- 
ed torrent, which bore away the minds of 
the delighted auditors. 

It is doubtless very true, that a man of 
study and reflection, accustomed delibe- 
rately to weigh every expression and ana- 
lyze every sentence, and to be influenced 
by nothing which does not bear the test of 
the severest examination, may be most 
impressed by the quiet, unpretending read- 
ing of a well digested essay or dissertation. 
To some men the concisest statement of 
a subject, with nothing to adorn the naked 
skeleton of thought, is most forcible. They 
are even impatient of any attempt to 
its effect by fine writing, by emphasis, tone, 
or gesture. They are like the mathema- 
tician, who read the Paradise Lost with- 
out pleasure, because he could not see 
that it proved any thing. But we are not 
to judge from the taste of such men, of 
what is suitable to affect the majority. 
The multitude are not mere thinkers or 
great readers. From their necessary ha- 



9 



bits they are incapable of following a long 
discussion except it be made inviting by 
the circumstances attending it, or the 
manner of conducting it. Their atten- 
tion must be roused and maintained by 
some external application. To them, 

Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant 
More learned than their ears. 

It is a great fault with intellectual men, 
that ihey do not make sufficient allowance 
for the different modes of education and 
habits of mind in men of other pursuits. 
It is one of the infelicities of education at 
a university, that a man is there trained in 
a fictitious scene, where there are inter- 
ests, associations, feelings, exceedingly 
diverse from what prevail in the society of 
the world ; and where he becomes so far 
separated from the habits and sympathies 
of other men, as to need to acquire a new 
knowledge of them, before he knows how 
to address them. When a young man 
leaves the seclusion of a student's life to 
preach to his fellow-men, he is likely to 
speak to them as if they were scholars. 
He imagines them to be capable of ap- 
preciating the niceties of method and 
style, and of being affected by the same 
sort of sentiment, illustration, and cool 



10 



remark, which affects those who have been 
accustomed to be guided by the dumb and 
lifeless pages of a book. He therefore 
talks to them calmly, is more anxious for 
correctness than impression, fears to make 
more noise or to have more motion than 
the very letters on his manuscript ; ad- 
dressing himself, as he thinks, to the in- 
tellectual part of man ; but he forgets that 
the intellectual man is not very easy of ac- 
cess, and must be approached through the 
senses and affections and imagination. 

There was a class of rhetoricians and 
orators at Rome in the time of Cicero, 
who were famous for having made the 
same mistake. They would do every 
thing by a fixed and almost mechanical 
rule, by calculation and measurement. 
Their sentences were measured, their ges- 
tures were measured, their tones were 
measured ; and they framed canons of 
judgment and taste, by which it was pro- 
nounced an affront on the intellectual na- 
ture of man to assail him with epithets, 
and exclamations, and varied tones, and 
emphatic gesture. They censured the free 
and flowing manner of Cicero as "tumid 
and exuberant," inflatus et tumens, nee 
satis pressus, supra modum exultans et 



11 



superfluens.* They cultivated a more 
guarded and concise style, which might 
indeed please the critic or the scholar, 
but was wholly unfitted to instruct or move 
a promiscuous audience ; as was said of 
one of them, oratio — doctis et attente 
audientibus erat illustris ; a multitudine 
autem et a foro, cui-nata eloquentia est, 
devorabatur. The taste of the multitude 
prevailed, and Cicero was the admiration 
of the people, while those who pruned 
themselves by a more rigid and philos- 
ophical law, 

« Coldly correct and critically dull,' 

" were frequently deserted by the audi- 
ence in the midst of their harangues. "f 

We may learn something from this. 
There is one mode of address for books 
and for classical readers, and another for 
the mass of men, who judge by the eye 
and ear, by the fancy and feelings, and 
know little of rules of art or of an educa- 
ted taste. Hence it is that many of those 
preachers who have become the classics 
of a country, have been unattractive to 
the multitude, who have deserted their 
polished and careful composition, for the 
more unrestrained and rousing declama- 

* Tac. de Oratoribus Dial. c. 18. 
t Middleton's Life of Cicero, III. 324. 



12 



lion of another class. The singular suc- 
cess of Chalmers seems to be in a consi- 
derable measure owing to his attention to 
this fact. He has abandoned the pure 
and measured style, and adopted a hetero- 
geneous mixture of the gaudy, pompous, 
and colloquial, offensive to the ears of lit- 
erary men, but highly acceptable to those 
who are less biassed by the authority of a 
standard taste and established models. 
We need not go to the extreme of Chal- 
mers — for there is no necessity for inaccu- 
racy, bombast, or false taste — but we 
should doubtless gain by adopting his prin- 
ciple. The object is to address men ac- 
cording to their actual character, and in 
that mode in which their habits of mind 
may render them most accessible. As but 
few are thinkers or readers, a congregation 
is not to be addressed as such ; but, their 
modes of life being remembered, constant 
regard must be had to their need of exter- 
nal attraction. This is most easily done 
by the familiarity and directness of extem- 
poraneous address ; for which reason this 
mode of preaching has peculiar advanta- 
ges, in its adaptation to their situation and 
wants. 

The truth is, indeed, that it is not the 



13 

weight of the thought, the profoundness 01 
the argument, the exactness of the arrange- 
ment, the choiceness of the language, 
which interest and chain the attention of 
even those educated hearers, who are able 
to appreciate them all. They are as like- 
ly to sleep through the whole as others. 
They can find all these qualities in much 
higher perfection in their libraries ; they 
do not seek these only at church. And as 
to the large mass of the people, they are 
to them hidden things, of which they dis- 
cern nothing. It is not these, so much as 
the attraction of an earnest manner, which 
arrests the attention and makes instruction 
welcome. Every day's observation may 
show us, that he who has this manner will 
retain the attention of even an intellectual 
man with common-place thoughts, while, 
with a different manner, he would render 
tedious the most novel and ingenious dis- 
quisitions. Let an indifferent reader take 
into the pulpit a sermon of Barrow or But- 
ler, and all its excellence of argument and 
eloquence would not save it from being 
accounted tedious ; while an empty de- 
claimer shall collect crowds to hang upon 
his lips in raptures. And this manner, 
which is so attractive, is not the studied 
2 



11 



artificial enunciation of the rhetorician's 
school, but the free, flowing-, animated ut- 
terance, which seems to come from the 
impulse of the subject; which may be full 
of faults, yet masters the attention by its 
nature and sincerity. This is precisely 
the manner of the extemporaneous speak- 
er — in whom the countenance reflects the 
emotions of the soul, and the tone of voice 
is tuned to the feelings of the heart, rising 
and falling; with the subject, as in conver- 
sation, without the regular and harmoni- 
ous modulation of the practised reader. 

In making these and similar remarks, it 
is true that I am thinking of the best ex- 
temporaneous speakers, and that all can- 
not be such. But it ought to be recol- 
lected at the same time, that all cannot be 
excellent readers ; that those who speak 
ill, would probably read still worse ; and 
that therefore those who can attain to no 
eminence as speakers, do not on that ac- 
count fail of the advantages of which I 
speak, since they escape at least the unna- 
tural monotony of bad reading ; than which 
nothing is more earnestly to be avoided. 

Every man utters himself with greater 
animation and truer emphasis in speaking, 
than he does, or perhaps can do, in read- 
ing. Hence it happens that we can listen 



15 



longer to a tolerable speaker, than to a 
good reader. There is an indescribable 
something in the natural tones of him who 
is expressing earnestly his present thoughts, 
altogether foreign from the drowsy unifor- 
mity of the man that reads. I once heard 
it well observed, that the least animated 
mode of communicating thoughts to others, 
is the reading from a book the composi- 
tion of another ; the next in order is the 
reading one's own composition ; the next 
is delivering one's own composition me- 
moriter ; and the most animated of all is 
the uttering one's own thoughts as they 
rise fresh in his mind. Very few can give 
the spirit to another's writings which they 
communicate to their own, or can read 
their own with the spirit, with which 
they spontaneously express themselves. 
We have all witnessed this in conversa- 
tion ; when we have listened with inter- 
est to long harangues from persons, who 
tire us at once if they begin to read. It is 
verified at the bar and in the legislature, 
where orators maintain the unflagging at- 
tention of hearers for a long period, when 
they could not have read the same speech 
without producing intolerable fatigue. It 
is equally verified in the history of the pul- 



16 



pit ; for those who are accustomed to the 
reading of sermons, are for the most part 
impatient even of able discourses, when 
they extend beyond the half hour's length ; 
while very indifferent extemporaneous 
preachers are listened to with unabated at- 
tention for a full hour. In the former case 
there is a certain uniformity of tone, and 
a perpetual recurrence of the same caden- 
ces, inseparable from the manner of a rea- 
der, from which the speaker remains lon- 
ger free. This difference is perfectly well 
understood, and was acted upon by Cecil, 
whose success as a preacher gives him a 
right to be heard, when he advised young 
preachers to " limit a written sermon to 
half an hour, and one from notes to forty 
minutes."* For the same reason, those 
preachers whose reading comes nearest to 
speaking, are universally more interesting 
than others. 

Thus it is evident that there is an attrac- 
tiveness in this mode of preaching, which 
gives it peculiar advantages. He imparts 
greater interest to what he says, who is go- 
verned by the impulse of the moment, than 
he who speaks by rule. When he feels 
the subject, his voice and gesture corres- 
pond to that feeling, and communicate it 

* CcciPt Remain*— a, delightful little book. 



17 



to others as it can be done in no other way. 
Though he possess but indifferent talents, 
yet if he utter himself with sincerity and 
feeling, it is far pleasanter than to listen 
to his cold reading of what he wrote per- 
haps with little excitement, and delivers 
with less. 

In thus speaking of the interest which 
attends an extemporaneous delivery, it is 
not necessary to pursue the subject into a 
general comparison of the advantages of 
this mode with those of reading and of re- 
citing from memory. Each has prevailed 
in different places and at different periods, 
and each undoubtedly has advantages and 
disadvantages peculiar to itself. These 
are well though briefly stated in the ex- 
cellent article on Elocution in Rees' Cy- 
clopaedia, to which it will be sufficient to 
refer, as worthy attentive perusal.* The 
question at large I cannot undertake to dis- 
cuss. If I should, I could hardly hope to 
satisfy either others or myself. The almost 
universal custom of reading in this part of 
the world, where recitation from memory 
is scarcely known, and extemporaneous 
speaking is practised by very few except 

* See also Bridge's « Christian Ministry," Part iv. Ch. 5, 
Sec. 2— a wort first published in 1829. 

2* 



18 



the illiterate, forbids any thing like a fair 
deduction from observation. In order to 
institute a just comparison, one should have 
had extensive opportunities of watching 
the success of each mode, and of knowing 
the circumstances under which each was 
tried. For in the inquiry, which is to be 
preferred in the pulpit, — we must consi- 
der, not which has most excellencies when 
it is found in perfection, but which has 
excellencies attainable by the largest 
number of preachers ; not which is first in 
theory or most beautiful as an art, but 
which has been and is likely to be most 
successful in practice. These are ques- 
tions not easily answered. Each mode 
has its advocates and its opponents. In the 
English church there is nothing but read- 
ing, and we hear from every quarter com- 
plaints of it. In Scotland the custom of 
recitation prevails, but multitudes besides 
Dr. Campbell* condemn it. In many parts 
of the continent of Europe no method is 
known, but that of a brief preparation and 
unpremeditated language ; but that it 
should be universally approved by those 
who use it, is more than we can suppose. 
The truth is, that either method may fail 
in the hands of incompetent or indolent 

* See his fourth Lecture on Pulpit Eloquence. 



19 



men, and either may be thought to suc- 
ceed by those whose taste or prejudices 
are obstinate in its favor. All that I con- 
tend for, in advocating unwritten dis- 
course, is, that this method claims a de- 
cided superiority over the others in some 
of the most important particulars. That 
the others have their own advantages, I 
do not deny, nor that this is subject to 
disadvantages from which they are free. 
But whatever these may be, I hope to show 
that they are susceptible of a remedy ; 
that they are not greater than those which 
attend other modes ; that they are balanc- 
ed by equal advantages ; and that there- 
fore this art deserves to be cultivated by 
all who would do their utmost to render 
their ministry useful. There can be no 
good reason why the preacher should con- 
fine himself to either mode. It might be 
most beneficial to cultivate and practise all. 
By this means he might impart somthing 
of the advantages of each to each, and 
correct the faults of all by mingling them 
with the excellencies of all. He would 
learn to read with more of the natural ac- 
cent of the speaker, and to speak with 
more of the precision of the writer. 
The remarks already made have been 



^- 



20 



designed to point out some of the general 
advantages attending the use of unprepar- 
ed language. Some others remain to be 
noticed, which have more particular refer- 
ence to the preacher individually. 

It is no unimportant consideration to a 
minister of the gospel, that this is a talent 
held in high estimation among men, and 
that it gives additional influence to him 
who possesses it. It is thought to argue 
capacity and greatness of mind. Fluency 
of language passes with many, and those 
not always the vulgar, for affluence of 
thought ; and never to be at a loss for 
something to say, is supposed to indicate 
inexhaustible knowledge. It cannot have 
escaped the observation of any one accus- 
tomed to notice the judgments which are 
passed upon men, how much reputation 
and consequent influence are acquired by 
the power of speaking readily and boldly, 
without any other considerable talent, and 
with very indifferent acquisitions ; and how 
a man of real talents, learning, and worth, 
has frequently sunk below his proper level, 
from a mere awkwardness and embarrass- 
ment in speaking without preparation. So 
that it is not simply superstition which 
leads so many to refuse the name of 



21 



preaching to all but extemporaneous ha- 
rangues ; it is in part owing to the natural 
propensity there is to admire, as some- 
thing wonderful and extraordinary, this 
facility of speech. It is undoubtedly a 
very erroneous standard of judgment. But 
a minister of the gospel, whose success in 
his important calling depends so much on 
his personal influence, and the estimation 
in which his gifts are held, can hardly be 
justified in slighting the cultivation of a 
talent, which may so innocently add to 
his means of influence. 

It must be remembered also, that occa- 
sions will sometimes occur, when the want 
of this power may expose him to mortifica- 
tion, and deprive him of an opportunity of 
usefulness. For such emergencies one 
would choose to be prepared. It may be 
of consequence that he should express his 
opinion in an ecclesiastical council, and 
give reasons for the adoption or rejection 
of important measures. Possibly he may 
be only required to state facts, which have 
come to his knowledge. It is very desir- 
able to be able to do this readily, fluently, 
without embarrassment to himself, and 
pleasantly to those who hear ; and in or- 
der to this, a habit of speaking is necessa^ 



ry. In the course of his ministrations 
amongst his own people, occasions will 
arise when an exhortation or address 
would be seasonable and useful, but when 
there is no time for written preparation. 
If then he have cultivated the art of ex- 
temporaneous speaking, and attained to 
any degree of facility and con6dence in it, 
he may avail himself of the opportunity to 
do good, which he must otherwise have 
passed by unimproved. Funerals and 
baptisms afford suitable occasions of mak- 
ing good religious impressions. A sudden 
providence, also, on the very day of the 
sabbath, may suggest most valuable topics 
of reflection and exhortation, lost to him 
who is confined to what he may have pre- 
viously written, but choice treasure to him 
who can venture to speak without writing. 
If it were only to avail himself of a few 
opportunities like these in the course of 
his life, or to save himself but once the 
mortification of being silent when he 
ought to speak, is expected to speak, and 
would do good by speaking, it would be 
well worth all the time and pains it might 
cost to acquire it. 

It is a further advantage, not to be for- 
gotten here, that the excitement of speak- 



23 



ing in public strikes out new views of a 
subject, new illustrations, and unthought 
of figures and arguments, which perhaps 
never would have presented themselves to 
the mind in retirement. " The warmth 
which animates him," says Fenelon, " gives 
birth to expressions and figures, which he 
never could have prepared in his study." 
He who feels himself safe in flying off 
from the path he has prescribed to him- 
self, without any fear lest he should fail to 
find his way back, will readily seize upon 
these, and be astonished at the new light 
which breaks in upon him as he goes on, 
and flashes all around him. This is ac- 
cording to the experience of all extempo- 
raneous speakers. " The degree in which," 
says Thomas Scott,* who practised this 
method constantly, " after the most careful 
preparation for the pulpit, new thoughts, 
new arguments, animated addresses, often 
flow into my mind, while speaking to a 
congregation, even on very common sub- 
jects, makes me feel as if I was quite 
another man than when poring over them 
in my study. There will be inaccuracies ; 
but generally the most striking things in 
my sermons were unpremeditated." 

* Life, p. 268. 



u 



Then again, the presence of the audi- 
ence gives a greater seeming reality to the 
work ; it is less like doing a task, and 
more like speaking to men, than when one 
sits coolly writing at his table. Conse- 
quently there is likely to be greater plain- 
ness and directness in his exhortations, 
more closeness in his appeals, more of the 
earnestness of genuine feeling in his ex- 
postulations. He ventures, in the warmth 
of the moment, to urge considerations, 
which perhaps in the study seemed too 
familiar, and to employ modes of ad- 
dress, which are allowable in personal 
communion with a friend, but which one 
hesitates to commit to writing, lest he 
should infringe the dignity of deliberate 
composition. This forgetfulness of self, 
this unconstrained following the impulse 
of the affections, while he is hurried on by 
the presence and attention of those whom 
he hopes to benefit, creates a sympathy 
between him and his hearers, a direct 
passage from heart to heart, a mutual un- 
derstanding of each other, which does 
more to effect the true object of religious 
discourse, than any thing else can do. 
The preacher will, in this way, have the 
boldness to say many things which ought 



25 



to be said, but about which, in his study, 
he would feel reluctant and timid. And 
granting that he might be led to say some 
things improperly, yet if his mind be well 
disciplined and well governed, and his 
discretion habitual, he will do it exceed- 
ingly seldom; while no v one, who esti- 
mates the object of preaching as highly 
as he should, will think an occasional false 
step any objection against that mode, which 
ensures upon the whole the greatest bold- 
ness and earnestness. He will think it a 
less fault than the tameness and abstract- 
ness, which are the besetting sins of delib- 
erate composition. At any rate, what me- 
thod is secure from occasional false steps ? 
Another consideration which recom- 
mends this method to the attention of 
preachers, though at the same time it in- 
dicates one of its difficulties, is this ; that 
all men, from various causes, constitution- 
al or accidental, are subject to great ine^ 
quality in the operations of their minds — 
sometimes laboring with felicity and some- 
times failing. Perhaps this fact is in no 
men so observable as in preachers, be- 
cause no others are so much compelled to 
labor, and exhibit their labors, at all sea- 
sons, favorable and unfavorable. There is 
3 



26 



a certain quantity of the severest mental 
toil to be performed every week ; and as 
the mind cannot be always in the same 
frame, they are constantly presenting 
proofs of the variation of their powers. 
An extemporaneous speaker is of course 
exposed to all this inequality, and must 
expect to be sometimes mortified by ill 
success. When the moment of speaking 
arrives, his mind may be slow and dull, 
his thoughts sluggish and impeded ; he 
may be exhausted by labor, or suffering 
from temporary indisposition. He strives 
in vain to rally his powers, and forces his 
way, with thorough discomfort and cha- 
grin, to the end of an unprofitable talk. 
But then how many men write under the 
same embarrassments, and are equally dis- 
satisfied ; with the additional mortifica- 
tion of having spent a longer time, and 
of being unable to give their poor prepa- 
ration the interest of a forcible manner, 
which the very distress of an extempora- 
neous effort would have imparted. 

But on the other hand, when his mind is 
bright and clear, and his animal spirits live- 
ly, he will speak much better after merely 
a suitable premeditation, than he can pos- 
sibly write. " Every man," says Bishop 



27 



Burnet, " may thus rise far above what he 
could ever have attained in any other way." 
We see proof of this in conversation. When 
engaged in unrestrained and animated con- 
versation with familiar friends, who is not 
conscious of having struck out brighter 
thoughts and happier sayings, than he ever 
put upon paper in the deliberate compo- 
sition of the closet ? It is a common re- 
mark concerning many men, that they 
pray much better than they preach. The 
reason is, that their sermons are made leis- 
urely and sluggishly, without excitement ; 
but in their public devotions they are 
strongly engaged, and the mind acts with 
more concentration and vivacity. The 
same thing has been observed in the art of 
music. " There have been organists, whose 
abilities in unstudied effusions on their in- 
struments have almost amounted to inspi- 
ration, such as Sebastian Bach, Handel, 
Marchand, Couperin, Kelway, Stanley, 
Worgan, and Keeble ; several of whom 
played better music extempore than they 
could write with meditation."* 

It is upon no different principle that we 
explain, what all scholars have experienc- 
ed, that they write best when they write 

* Rees' Cyclopaedia. 



28 



rapidly, from a full and excited mind. 
One of Roscommon's precepts is, " to 
write with fury and correct with phlegm." 
The author of Waverley tells us, "that the 
works and passages in which he has suc- 
ceeded, have uniformly been written with 
the greatest rapidity." The same author 
is understood to have said, that of his prin- 
cipal poems, only one, the " Lady of the 
Lake," was written over a second time, 
and that this was completed in six weeks. 
Johnson's best Ramblers and his admira- 
ble Rasselas were hurried wet and uncor- 
rected to the press. The celebrated 
Rockingham Memorial at the commence- 
ment of the late war, is said to have been 
the hasty composition of a single evening. 
And it will be found true, I believe, of 
many of the best sermon writers, that they 
revolve the subject till their minds are 
filled and warmed, and then put their 
discourse upon paper at a single sitting. 
Now what is all this but extemporaneous 
writing? and what does it require but a 
mind equally collected and at ease, equally 
disciplined by practice, and interested in 
the subject, to ensure equal success in 
extemporaneous speaking ? Nay, we 
might anticipate occasional superior sue- 



29 



cess ; since the thoughts sometimes flow, 
when at the highest and most passionate 
excitement, too rapidly and profusely for 
any thing slower than the tongue to afford 
them vent. 

There is one more consideration in fa- 
vour of the practice I recommend, which I 
think cannot fail to have weight with all 
who are solicitous to make progress in 
theological knowledge ; namely, that it 
redeems time for study. The labor of 
preparing and committing to paper a ser- 
mon or two every week, is one which ne- 
cessarily occupies the principal part of a 
minister's time and thoughts, and with- 
draws him from the investigation of many 
subjects, which, if his mind were more at 
leisure, it would be his duty and pleasure 
to pursue. He who writes sermons, is ready 
to consider this as the chief object, or per- 
haps the sole business of his calling. When 
not actually engaged in writing, yet the 
necessity of doing it presses upon his mind, 
and so binds him as to make him feel as if 
he were wrong in being employed on any 
thing else. I speak of the tendency, which 
certainly is to prevent a man from pursu- 
ing, very extensively, any profitable study. 
But if he have acquired that ready com- 
3* 



30 



mand of thought and language, which 
will enable him to speak without written 
preparation, the time and toil of writing 
are saved, to be devoted to a different 
mode of study. He may prepare his dis- 
courses at intervals of leisure, while walk- 
ing or riding ; and having once arranged 
the outlines of the subject, and ascertain- 
ed its principal bearings and applications, 
the work of preparation is over. The lan- 
guage remains to be suggested at the mo- 
ment. 

I do not mean by this, that preparation 
for the pulpit should ever be made slight- 
ly, or esteemed an object of small impor- 
tance. It doubtless demands, and should 
receive, the best of a man's talents and la- 
bors. What I contend for is, that a habit 
of mind may be acquired, which shall en- 
able one to make a better and more thor- 
ough preparation at less expense of labor 
and time. He may acquire, by discipline, 
that ease and promptitude of looking into 
subjects and bringing out their prominent 
features, which shall enable him at a 
glance, as it were, to seize the points on 
which he should enlarge.* Some minds 

* I would here refer the student to Whately's valuable 
work, Elements of Rhetoric, which has appeared since 
the first publication of this treatise. " A perfect familiarity," 



are so constituted as " to look a subject 
into shape" much more readily than others. 
But the power of doing it is in a great 
measure mechanical, and depends upon 
habit. All may acquire it to a certain ex- 
tent. When the mind works with most 
concentration, it works at once most quick- 
ly and most surely. Now the act of speak- 
ing extempore favors this concentration of 
the powers, more than the slower process 
of leisurely writing — perhaps more than 
any other operation ; consequently, it in- 
creases, with practice, the facility of dis- 
secting subjects, and of arranging materi- 
als for preaching. In other words, the 
completeness with which a subject is view- 
ed and its parts arranged, does not depend 
so much on the time spent upon it, as on 
the vigor with which the attention is ap- 
plied to it. That course of study is the 
best, which most favors this vigor of atten- 
tion ; and the habit of extemporaneous 
speaking is more than any thing favorable 
to it, from the necessity which it imposes 



he says, "with the rules laid down in the first part of his 
work, would be likely to give the extemporaneous orator that 
habit of quickly methodizing his thoughts on a given subject, 
which is essential (at least where no very long premeditation 
is allowed) to give to a Speech something of the weight of 
argument and clearness of arrangement, which characterize 
good writing." 



32 



of applying the mind with energy, and 
thinking promptly. 

The great danger in this case would be, 
that of substituting an easy flow of words 
for good sense and sober reflection, and 
becoming satisfied with very superficial 
thoughts. But this danger is guarded 
against by the habit of study, and of writ- 
ing for other purposes. If a man should 
neglect all mental exertion, except so far 
as would be required in the meditation of a 
sermon, it would be ruinous. We witness 
its disastrous effects in the empty word- 
iness of many extemporaneous preachers. 
It is wrong, however, to argue against the 
practice itself, from their example ; for 
all other modes would be equally con- 
demned, if judged by the ill success of in- 
dolent and unfaithful men. The minister 
must keep himself occupied, — reading, 
thinking, investigating; thus having his 
mind always awake and active. This is 
a far better preparation than the bare writ- 
ing of sermons, for it exercises the powers 
more, and keeps them bright. The great 
master of Roman eloquence thought it es- 
sential to the true orator, that he should 
be familiar with all sciences, and have his 
mind filled with every variety of knowl- 



33 



edge. He therefore, much as he studied 
his favorite art, yet occupied more time in 
literature, philosophy, and politics, than in 
the composition of his speeches. His pre- 
paration was less particular than general. 
So it has been with other eminent speak- 
ers. When Sir Samuel Romilly was in 
full practice in the High Court of Chan- 
cery, and at the same time overwhelmed 
with the pressure of public political con- 
cerns ; his custom was to enter the court, 
to receive there the history of the cause 
he was to plead, thus to acquaint himself 
with the circumstances for the first time, 
and forthwith proceed to argue it. His 
general preparation and long practice en- 
abled him to do this, without failing in jus- 
tice to his cause. I do not know that in 
this he was singular. The same sort of 
preparation would ensure success in the 
pulpit. He who is always thinking, may 
expend upon each individual effort less 
time, because he can think at once fast 
and well. But he who never thinks, ex- 
cept when attempting to manufacture a 
sermon (and it is to be feared there are 
such men,) must devote a great deal of 
time to this labor exclusively ; and after 
all, he will not have that wide range of 



34 

thought or copiousness of illustration, 
which his office demands and which study 
only can give. 

In fact, what I have here insisted upon, 
is exemplified in the case of the extempo- 
raneous writers, whom I have already nam- 
ed. I would only carry their practice a 
step further, and devote an hour to a dis- 
course instead of a day. Not to all dis- 
courses, for some ought to be written for 
the sake of writing, and some demand a 
sort of investigation, to which the use of 
the pen is essential. But then a very 
large proportion of the topics on which a 
minister should preach, have been sub- 
jects of his attention a thousand times. 
He is thoroughly familiar with them 3 and 
an hour to arrange his ideas and collect 
illustrations, is abundantly sufficient. The 
late Thomas Scott is said for years to 
have prepared his discourses entirely by 
meditation on the Sunday, and thus to 
have gained leisure for his extensive stud- 
ies, and great and various labours. This 
is an extreme on which {ew have a right 
to venture, and which should be recom- 
mended to none. It shows, however, the 
power of habit, and the ability of a mind 
to act promptly and effectually, which is 



35 



kept upon the alert by constant occupa- 
tion. He who is always engaged in think- 
ing and studying, will always have thoughts 
enough for a sermon, and good ones too, 
which will come at an hour's warning. 

The objections which may be made to 
the practice I have sought to recommend, 
I must leave to be considered in another 
place. 1 am desirous, in concluding this 
chapter, to add the favorable testimony of 
a writer, who expressly disapproves the 
practice in general, but who allows its 
excellence when accompanied by that 
preparation which I would every where 
imply. 

"You are accustomed," says Dinouart,* 
" to the careful study and imitation of na- 
ture. You have used yourself to Writing 
and speaking with care on different sub- 
jects, and have well stored your memory 
by reading. You thus have provided re- 
sources for speaking, which are always at 
hand. The best authors and the best 
thoughts are familiar to you ; you can 
readily quote the scriptures, you express 
yourself easily and gracefully, you have a 
sound and correct judgment on which you 
can depend, method and precision in the 

* Sur PEloquence du Corps, ou 1' Action du Predicateur. 



of proofs ; you can readily 
each part by natural tr ansitions 
and are able to sav all that belongs, and 
precisely what belongs to the subject. 

may then take only a day, or o 
hour, to reflect on o arrange 

TOUT top--- «■* 7«> r *°** 

choose and to prepare yonr illustrations, — 
and then, appear in pontic. 1 am per- 

wUbas that vou should. The com 






oe less harmonious, your tran- 

will sometimes escape yon; hut all this is 
rW aninmnhna of yarn *n- 



. will compensate for these bkmisbes, 

■ 
■mas. and those of vour hearer*. There 



a 

i no 



tion as well as your words will appear to 
me the more natural.'' 






- 
- 

- 

I: ■■■&: :-= _:*n :. l_ :t~.u^t: ■■■ 
:oop of tile 




■eaaeBBC ^ia: ins i-icalc be 

: 

mingji are cmren 





;j. _:e .j ed. "iia: :~ 



38 



meant, unpremeditated. Whereas there 
is a plain and important distinction be* 
tween them, the latter word being applied 
to the thoughts, and the former to the 
language only. To preach without pre- 
meditation, is altogether unjustifiable ; al- 
though there is no doubt that a man of 
habitual readiness of mind, may express 
himself to great advantage on a subject 
with which he is familiar, after very little 
meditation. 

Many writers on the art of preaching', 
as well as on eloquence in general, have 
given a decided judgment unfavorable to 
extemporaneous speaking. There can be 
no fairer way of answering their objec- 
tions, than by examining what they have 
advanced, and opposing their authority by 
that of eqnal names on the other side. 

Gerard, in his Treatise on the Pastoral 
Charge, has the following passage on this 
subject. 

" He will run into trite, common-place 
topics ; his compositions will be loose and 
unconnected ; his language often coarse 
and confused ; and diffidence, or care to 
recollect his subject, will destroy the man- 
agement of his voice." At the same time, 
however, he admits that " it is very pro- 



39 



per that a man should be able to preach 
in this way, when it is necessary ; — but no 
man ought always to preach in this way." 
To which decision I have certainly nothing 
to object. 

Mason, in his Student and Pastor, says 
to the same effect, that " the inaccuracy 
of diction, the inelegance, poverty, and 
lowness of expression, which is commonly 
observed in extempore discourses^ will 
not fail to offend every hearer of good 
taste." 

Dinouart, who is an advocate for reci- 
tation from memory, says that " experi- 
ence decides against extemporaneous 
preaching, though there are exceptions; 
but these are very few ; and we must not 
be led astray by the success of a few first 
rate orators." 

Hume, in his Essay upon Eloquence, 
expresses an opinion that the modern de- 
ficiency in this art is to be attributed to 
"that extreme affectation of extempore 
speaking, which has led to extreme care- 
lessness of method." 

The writer of an article, on the Greek 
Orators, in the Edinburgh Review,* ob- 
serves, that " among the sources of the 

* No. LXXT. p. 89. 



40 



corruption of modern eloquence, may 
clearly be distinguished as the most fruit- 
ful, the habit of extempore speaking, ac- 
quired rapidly by persons who frequent 
popular assemblies, and, beginning at the 
wrong end, attempt to speak before they 
have studied the art of oratory, or even 
duly stored their minds with the treasures 
of thought and language, which can only 
be drawn from assiduous intercourse with 
the ancient and modern classics." 

These are the prominent objections 
which have been made to the practice in 
question. Without denying that they have 
weight, I think it may be made to appear 
that they have not the unquestionable pre- 
ponderance, which is assumed for them. 
They will be found, on examination, to be 
the objections of a cultivated taste, and to 
be drawn from the examples of undisci- 
plined men, who ought to be left entirely 
out of the question. 

1. The objection most urged is that 
which relates to style. It is said, the ex- 
pression will be poor, inelegant, inaccu- 
rate, and offensive to hearers of taste. 

To those who urge this it may be re- 
plied, that the reason why style is an im- 
portant consideration in the pulpit, is, not 



41 



that the taste of the hearers may be gra- 
tified, for but a small part of any congre- 
gation is capable of taking cognizance of 
this matter ; — but solely for the purpose 
of presenting the speaker's thoughts, rea- 
sonings, and expostulations distinctly and 
forcibly to the minds of his hearers. If 
this be effected, it is all which can reason- 
ably be demanded. And I ask if it be not 
notorious, that an earnest and appropriate 
elocution will give this effect to a poor 
style, and that poor speaking will take it 
away from the most exact and emphatic 
style f Is it not also notorious that the pe- 
culiar earnestness of spontaneous speech, 
is, above all others, suited to arrest the at- 
tention, and engage the feelings of an au- 
dience ? and that the mere reading of a 
piece of fine composition, under the no- 
tion that careful thought and finished dic- 
tion are the only things needful, leaves 
the majority uninterested in the discourse, 
and free to think of any thing they please ? 
" It is a poor compliment," says Blair, 
" that one is an accurate reasoner, if he be 
not a persuasive speaker also." It is a 
small matter that the style is poor, so long 
as it answers the great purpose of instruct- 
ing and affecting men. So that, as I have 
4* 



42 



more fully shown in a former place, the 
objection lies on an erroneous founda- 
tion. 

Besides, if it were not so, it will be 
found quite as strong against the writing 
of sermons. For how large a proportion 
of sermon writers have these same faults 
of style ! what a great want of force, 
neatness, compactness, is there in the 
composition of most preachers ! what 
weakness, inelegance, and ^conclusive- 
ness ; and how small improvement do they 
make, even after the practice of years ! 
How happens this? It is because they do 
not make this an object of attention and 
study ', and some might be unable to at- 
tain it if they did. But that watchfulness 
and care which secure a correct and neat 
style in writing, would also secure it in 
speaking. It does not naturally belong 
to the one, more than to the other, and 
may be as certainly attained in each by 
the proper pains. Indeed so far as my 
observation has extended, I am not cer- 
tain that there is not as large a proportion 
of extempore speakers, whose diction is 
exact and unexceptionable, as of writers — 
always taking into view their education, 
which equally affects the one and the 



43 



other. And it is a consideration of great 
weight, that the faults in question are far 
less offensive in speakers than in writers. 

It is apparent that objectors of this sort 
are guilty of a double mistake ; first, in 
laying too great stress upon mere defects 
of style, and then in taking for granted, 
that these are unavoidable. They might 
as well insist that defects of written style 
are unavoidable. Whereas they are the 
consequence of the negligent mode in 
which the art has been studied, and of its 
having been given up, for the most part, to 
ignorant and fanatical pretenders. Let it 
be diligently cultivated by educated men, 
and we shall find no more cause to expel 
it from the pulpit than from the forum or 
the parliament. " Poverty, inelegance, 
and poorness of diction," will be no lon- 
ger so " generally observed," and even 
hearers of taste will cease to be offended; 

2. A want of order, a rambling, uncon- 
nected, desultory manner, is commonly 
objected ; as Hume styles it, " extreme 
carelessness of method ;" and this is so 
often observed, as to be justly an object 
of dread. But this is occasioned by that 
indolence and want of discipline to which 
we have just alluded. It is not a neces- 



44 



sary evil. If a man have never Studied 
the art of speaking, nor passed through a 
course of preparatory discipline ; if he 
have so rash and unjustifiable a confidence 
in himself, that he will undertake to speak, 
without having considered what he shall 
say, what object he shall aim at, or by 
what steps he shall attain it ; the inevita- 
ble consequence will be confusion, incon- 
clusiveness, and wandering. Who re- 
commends such a course ? But he who 
has first trained himself to the work, and 
whenever he would speak, has surveyed 
his ground, and become familiar with the 
points to be dwelt upon, and the course of 
reasoning and track of thought to be fol- 
lowed ; will go on from one step to anoth- 
er, in an easy and natural order, and give 
no occasion to the complaint of confusion 
or disarrangement. 

"Some preachers," says linouart, 
" have the folly to think that they can make 
sermous impromptu. And what a piece of 
work they make ! They bolt out even- 
thing which comes into their head. They 
take for granted, what ought to be prov- 
ed, or perhaps they state half the argu- 
ment, and forget the rest. Their appear- 
ance corresponds to the state of their 



45 

mind, which is occupied in hunting after 
some way of finishing the sentence they 
have begun. They repeat themselves ; 
they wander off in digression. They 
stand stiff without moving ; or if they are 
of a lively temperament, they are full of 
the most turbulent action ; their eyes and 
hands are flying about in every direction, 
and their words choke in their throats. 
They are like men swimming who have 
got frightened, and throw about their 
hands and feet at random, to save them- 
selves from drowning." 

There is doubtless great truth in this 
humorous description. But what is the 
legitimate inference ? that extemporaneous 
speaking is altogether ridiculous and mis- 
chievous ? or only that it is an art which 
requires study and discipline, and which 
no man should presume to practice, until 
he has fitted himself for it ? 

3. In the same way I should dispose of 
the objection, that this habit leads to bar- 
renness in preaching, and the everlasting 
repetition of the same sentiments and to- 
pics. If a man make his facility of speech 
an excuse for the neglect of study, then 
doubtless this will be the result. He who 
cannot resist his indolent propensities, 



46 

had best avoid this occasion of temptation. 
He must be able to command himself to 
think, and industriously prepare himself 
by meditation, if he would be safe in this 
hazardous experiment. He who does this, 
and continues to learn and reflect while 
he preaches, will be no more empty and 
monotonous than if he carefully wrote eve- 
ry, word. 

4. But this temptation to indolence in 
the preparation for the desk, is urged as 
in itself a decisive objection. A man finds, 
that, after a little practice, it is an exceed- 
ingly easy thing to fill up his half-hour 
with declamation which shall pass off very 
well, and hence be grows negligent in 
previous meditation ; and inseusibly de- 
generates into an empty exhorter, with- 
out choice of language, or variety of ideas. 
This is undoubtedly the great and alarm- 
ing danger of this practice. This must 
be triumphed over, or it is ruinous. We 
see examples of it wherever we look 
among those whose preaching is exclu- 
sively extempore. In these cases, the evil 
rises to its magnitude in consequence of 
their total neglect of the pen. The habit 
of writing a certain proportion of the time 
would, in some measure, counteract this 
dangerous tendency. 



47 



But it is still insisted, that man's natu- 
ral love of ease is not to be trusted ; that 
he will not long continue the drudgery of 
writing in part ; that when he has once 
gained confidence to speak without study, 
he will find it so flattering to his indo- 
lence, that he will involuntarily give him- 
self up to it, and relinquish the pen alto- 
gether ; that consequently there is no se- 
curity, except in never beginning. 

To this it may be rephed, that they 
who have not principle and self-govern- 
ment enough to keep them industrious, 
will not be kept so by being compelled to 
write sermons. I think we have abundant 
proof, that a man may write with as little 
pains and thinking, as he can speak. It 
by no means follows, that because it is on 
paper, it is therefore the result of study. 
And if it be not, it will be greatly inferior, 
in point of effect, to an unpremeditated 
declamation ; for in the latter case, there 
will probably be at least a temporary ex- 
citement of feeling, and consequent vi- 
vacity of manner, while in the former the 
indolence of the writer will be made doub- 
ly intolerable by his heaviness in reading. 

It cannot be doubted, however, that if 
any one find his facility of extemporane- 






ous invention, likely to prove destruc 
to his habits of diligent application ; it 
were advisable that he refrain from the 
practice. It could not be worth while 
for him to lose his habits of study and 
thinking for the sake of an ability to speak, 
which would hvail him but little, after his 
ability to think has been weakened or 
destroyed. 

As for those whose indolence habitually 
prevails over principle, and who make no 
preparation for duty excepting the me- 
chanical one of covering over a certain 
number of pages, — they have no concern 
in the ministry, and should be driven to 
seek some other employment, where their 
mechanical labor may provide them a live- 
lihood, without injuring their own souls, 
or those of other men. 

If the objection in question be applied 
to conscientious men, whose hearts are in 
their profession, and who have a sincere 
desire to do good, it certainly has very 
little weight. The minds of such men 
are kept active with reflection, and stored 
with knowledge, and warm with religious 
feeling. They are therefore always ready 
to speak to the purpose, as well as write 
to the purpose ; and their habitual sense 



49 



of the importance of their office, and their 
anxiety to fulfil it in the best manner, will 
forbid that indolence which is so disas- 
trous. The objection implies, that the 
consequence pointed out is one which 
cannot be avoided. Experience teaches 
us the contrary. It is the tendency — but 
a tendency which may be, for it has been, 
counteracted. Many have preached in 
this mode for years, and yet have never 
relaxed their diligence in study, nor de- 
clined in the variety, vigor, and interest 
of their discourses ; sometimes dull, un- 
doubtedly ; but this may be said with 
equal truth of the most faithful and labori- 
ous writers. 

5. Many suppose that there is a certain 
natural talent, essential to success in ex- 
tempore speaking, no less than in poetry ; 
and that it is absurd to recommend the 
art to those who have not this peculiar ta- 
lent, and vain for them to attempt its prac- 
tice. 

In regard to that ready flow of words, 
which seems to be the natural gift of some 
men, it is of little consequence whether it 
be really such, or be owing to the educa- 
tion and habits of early life, and vain self- 
confidence. It is certain that diffidence 
5 



50 

and the want of habit are great hindrances 
to fluency of speech ; and it is equally 
certain, that this natural fluency is a very 
questionable advantage to him who would 
be an impressive speaker. It is quite ob- 
servable that those who at first talk easi- 
est, do not always talk best. Their very 
facility is a snare to them. It serves to 
keep them content ; they make no effort 
to improve, and are likely to fall into slo- 
venly habits of elocution. So that this un- 
acquired fluency is so far from essential, 
that it is not even a benefit, and it may be 
an injury. It keeps from final eminence 
by the very greatness of its early promise. 
On the other hand, he who possesses ori- 
ginally no remarkable command of lan- 
guage, and whom an unfortunate bashful- 
ness prevents from well using what he 
has ; is obliged to subject himself to se- 
vere discipline, to submit to rules and 
tasks, to go through a tedious process of 
training, to acquire by much labor the 
needful sway over his thoughts and words, 
so that they shall come at his bidding, 
and not be driven away by his own diffi- 
dence, or the presence of other men. 
To do all this, is a long and disheartening 
labor. He is exposed to frequent morti- 
fications, and must endure many grievous 



51 



failures, before he attain that confidence 
which is indispensable to success. But 
then in this discipline, his powers, mental 
and moral, are strained up to the highest 
intenseness of action ; after persevering 
practice, they become habitually subject 
to his control, and work with a precision, 
exactness, and energy, which can never 
be the possession of him, who has depend- 
ed on his native, undisciplined gift. Of 
the truth of this, examples are by no 
means wanting, and I could name, if it 
were proper, more than one striking in- 
stance within my own observation. It 
was probably this to which Newton refer- 
red, when he said, that he never spoke 
well till he felt that he could not speak at 
all. Let no one therefore think it an ob- 
stacle in his way that he has no readiness 
of words. If he have good sense and no 
deficiency of talent, and is willing to labor 
for this as all great acquisitions must be 
labored for, he needs not fear but that in 
time he will attain it. 

We must be careful, however, not to 
mistake the object to be attained. It is 
not a high rank in oratory, consummate 
eloquence. If it were, then indeed a 
young man might pause till he had ascer- 



V2 



tained whether he possessed all those ex- 
traordinary endowments of intellect, im- 
agination, sensibility, countenance, voice, 
and person, which belong to few men in 
a century, and without which the 
Orator does not exist. He is one of those 
splendid formations of nature, which she 
exhibits but rarely ; and it is not neces- 
sary to the object of his pursuit that the 
minister be such. The purposes of his 
office are less ambitious, — to impart in- 
struction and do good ; and it is by no 
means certain that the greatest eloquence 
is best adapted to these purposes in the 
pulpit. But any man, with powers which 
fit him for the ministry at all, — unless there 
be a few extraordinary exceptions, — is ca- 
pable of learning to express himself clear- 
ly, correctly, and with method ; and this is 
precisely what is wanted, and no more 
than this. I do not say eloquently ; for as 
it is not thought indispensable that every 
writer of sermons should be eloquent, it 
cannot be thought essential that every 
speaker should be so. But the same pow- 
ers which have enabled him to write, will, 
with sufficient discipline, enable him to 
speak ; with every probability that when he 
comes to speak with the same ease and 



53 



collectedness, he will do it with a nearer 
approach to eloquence. Without such 
discipline he has no right to hope for suc- 
cess ; let him not say that success is im- 
possible, until he has submitted to it. 

I apprehend that these remarks will be 
found not only correct in theory, but 
agreeable to experience. With the ex- 
ceeding little systematic cultivation of the 
art which there is amongst us, and no ac- 
tual instruction, we find that a great ma- 
jority of the lawyers in our courts, and not 
a small portion of the members of our 
legislatures, are able to argue and debate. 
In some of the most popular and quite 
numerous religious sects, we find preach- 
ers enough, who are able to communicate 
their thoughts and harangue their con- 
gregations, and exert very powerful and 
permament influence over large bodies of 
the people. Some of these are men of as 
small natural talents and as limited edu- 
cation, as any that enter the sacred office. 
It should seem therefore that no one needs 
to despair. 

In the ancient republics of Greece and 
Rome, this accomplishment was a necessa- 
ry branch of a finished education. A much 
smaller proportion of the citizens were 
5* 



54 



educated than amongst us ; but of these a 
much larger number became orators. No 
man could hope for distinction or influence, 
and yet slight this art.* The command- 
ers of their armies were orators as well as 
soldiers, and ruled as well by their rhetor- 
ical as by their military skill. There was 
no trusting with them as with us, to a na- 
tural facility, or the acquisition of an acci- 
dental fluency by actual practice. But 
they served an apprenticeship to the art. 
They passed through a regular course of 
instruction in schools. They submitted 
to long and laborious discipline — infinitus 
labor et quotidiana meditatio.f They 
exercised themselves frequently, both be- 
fore equals and in the presence of teachers, 
who criticised, reproved, rebuked, excited 
emulation, and left nothing undone which 
art and perseverance could accomplish. 
The greatest orators of antiquity, so far 
from being favored by natural tendencies, 
except indeed in their high intellectual 

* It is often said that extemporaneous speaking is the dis- 
tinction of modern eloquence. But the whole lan<rua2e of 
Cicero's rhetorical works, as well as particular terms'in com- 
mon use, and anecdotes recorded of different speakers, 
prove the contrary ; not to mention Quinctilian's ex t 
structions on the subject. Hume, also, tells us from Suidas, 
that the writing of speeches was unknown until the time of 
Pericles. 

t Tac. de Or. Dial, c 30. 



55 



endowments, had to struggle against na- 
tural obstacles ; and instead of growing up 
spontaneously to their unrivalled emi- 
nence, they forced themselves forward by 
the most discouraging artificial process. 
Demosthenes combated an impediment 
in speech and ungainliness of gesture, 
which at first drove him from the forum 
in disgrace. Cicero failed at first through 
weakness of lungs, and an excessive ve- 
hemence of manner, which wearied the 
hearers and defeated his own purpose. 
These defects were conquered by study 
and discipline. Cicero exiled himself 
from home, and during his absence in 
various lands passed not a day without a 
rhetorical exercise ; seeking the mas- 
ters who were most severe in criticism, as 
the surest means of leading him to the 
perfection at which he aimed. Such too 
was the education of their other great 
men. They were all, according to their 
ability and station, orators ; orators, not 
by nature or accident, but by education ; 
formed in a strict process of rhetorical 
training ; admired and followed even 
while Demosthenes and Cicero, were liv- 
ing, and unknown now, only because it is 



56 



not possible that any but the first should 
survive the ordeal of ages. 

The inference to be drawn from these 
observations, is, that if so many of those 
who received an accomplished education 
became accomplished orators, because to 
become so was one purpose of their study ; 
then it is in the power of a much larger 
proportion amongst us, to form themselves 
into creditable and accurate speakers. 
The inference should not be denied until 
proved false by experiment. Let this art 
be made an object of attention, and young 
men train themselves to it faithfully and 
long ; and if any of competent talents and 
tolerable science be found at last incapa- 
ble of expressing themselves in contin- 
ued and connected discourse, so as to 
answer the ends of the christian ministry ; 
then, and not till then, let it be said that 
a peculiar talent or natural aptitude is 
requisite, the want of which must render 
effort vain ; then, and not till then, let us 
acquiesce in this indolent and timorous 
notion, which contradicts the whole testi- 
mony of antiquity, and all the experience 
of the world. Doubtless, after the most 
that can be done, there will be found the 
greatest variety of attainment ; " men will 



57 



differ," as Burnet remarks, " quite as 
much as in their written compositions ;" 
and some will do but poorly what others 
will do excellently. But this is likewise 
true of every other art in which men en- 
gage, and not least so of writing sermons ; 
concerning which no one will say, that as 
poor are not written, as it would be pos- 
sible for any one to speak. In truth, men 
of small talents and great sluggishness, of 
a feeble sense of duty and no zeal, will of 
course make poor sermons, by whatever 
process they may do it, let them write or 
let them speak. It is doubtful concerning 
some, whether they would even steal good 
ones. 

The survey we have now taken, ren- 
ders it evident, that the evils, which are 
principally objected against as attending 
this mode of preaching, are not necessary 
evils, but are owing to insufficient study 
and preparation before the practice is 
commenced, and indolence afterward. 
This is implied in the very expressions of 
the objectors themselves, who attribute 
the evil to " beginning at the wrong end, 
attempting to speak before studying the 
art of oratory, or even storing the mind 
with treasures of thought and language." 



58 



It is, also, implied in this language, that 
study and preparation are capable of 
removing the objections. I do not there- 
fore advocate the art, without insisting on 
the necessity of severe discipline and 
training. No man should be encouraged 
or permitted to adopt it, who will not take 
the necessary pains, and proceed with the 
necessary perseverance. 

This should be the more earnestly 
insisted upon, because it is from our loose 
and lazy notions on the subject, that elo- 
quence in every department is suffering 
so much, and that the pulpit especially 
has become so powerless ; where the most 
important things that receive utterance 
upon earth, are sometimes read like school- 
boys' tasks, without even the poor pains 
to lay emphasis on the right words, and to 
pause in the right places. And this, be- 
cause we fancy that, if nature have not 
designed us for orators, it is vain to make 
effort, and if she have, we shall be such 
without effort. True, that the noble gifts 
of mind are from nature ; but not lan- 
guage, or knowledge, or accent, or tone, 
or gesture ; these are to be learned, and 
it is with these that the speaker is con- 
cerned. These are all matters of acquisi- 



59 



tion, and of difficult acquisition ; possible 
to be attained, and well worth the exer- 
tion that must be made. 

The history of the world is full of testi- 
mony to prove how much depends upon 
industry ; not an eminent orator has lived, 
but is an example of it. Yet in contra- 
diction to all this, the almost universal 
feeling appears to be, that industry can 
effect nothing, that eminence is the result 
of accident, and that every one must be 
content to remain just what he may hap- 
pen to be. Thus multitudes, who come 
forward as teachers and guides, suffer 
themselves to be satisfied with the most 
indifferent attainments and a miserable 
mediocrity, without so much as inquir- 
ing how they might rise higher, much 
less making any attempt to rise. For any 
other art they would have served an ap- 
prenticeship, and would be ashamed to 
practice it in public before they had learn- 
ed it. If any one would sing, he attends a 
master, and is drilled in the very elemen- 
tary principles ; and only after the most 
laborious process dares to exercise bis 
voice in public. This he does, though he 
has scarce any thing to learn but the 
mechanical execution of what lies in 



<iO 



sensible forms before his eye. But the 
extemporaneous speaker, who is to invent 
as well as to utter, to carry on an opera- 
tion of the mind as well as to produce 
sound, enters upon the work without pre- 
paratory discipline, and then wonders that 
he fails ! If he were learning to play on the 
flute for public exhibition, what hours and 
days would he spend in giving facility to 
his fingers, and attaining the power of the 
sweetest and most impressive execution. 
If he were devoting himself to the organ, 
what months and years would he labor, 
that he might know its compass, and be 
master of its keys, and be able to draw 
out, at will, all its various combinations of 
harmonious sound, and its full richness 
and delicacy of expression. And yet he 
will fancy that the grandest, the most 
various, the most expressive of all instru- 
ments, which the infinite Creator has 
fashioned by the union of an intellectual 
soul with the powers of speech, may be 
played upon without study or practice ; 
he comes to it, a mere uninstructed tyro, 
and thinks to manage all its stops, and 
command the whole compass of its varied 
and comprehensive power ! He finds 
himself a bungler in the attempt, is mor- 



61 



tified at his failure, and settles it in his 
mind forever that the attempt is vain. 

Success in every art, whatever may be 
the natural talent, is always the reward of 
industry and pains. But the instances are 
many, of men of the finest natural genius, 
whose beginning has promised much, but 
who have degenerated wretchedly as they 
advanced, because they trusted to their 
gifts and made no effort to improve. That 
there have never been other men of equal 
endowments w T ith Demosthenes and Cice- 
ro, none would venture to suppose ; but 
who have so devoted themselves to their 
art, or become equal in excellence ? If 
those great men had been content, like 
others, to continue as they began, and 
had never made their persevering efforts 
for improvement, what would their coun- 
tries have benefited from their genius, or 
the world have known of their fame ? 
They would have been lost in the undis- 
tinguished crowd, that sunk to oblivion 
around them. Of how many more will 
the same remark prove true ! What en- 
couragement is thus given to the indus- 
trious ! 'With such encouragement, how 
inexcusable is the negligence which suf- 
fers the most interesting and important 
6 



truths to seem heavy and dull, and iali 
ineffectual to the ground, through mere 
sluggishness in their delivery ! How un- 
worthy of one who performs the high 
function of a religious instructer— upon 
whom depend, in a great measure, the 
religious knowledge and devotional senti- 
ment and final character of many fellow 
beings,— to imagine that he can worthily 
discharge this great concern by occasion- 
ally talking for an hour, he knows not 
how, and in a manner which he has taken 
no pains to render correct, impressive, or 
attractive ; and which, simply through 
want of that command over himself which 
study would give, is immethodical, ver- 
bose, inaccurate, feeble, trifling. It has 
been said of the good preacher, that 
« truths divine come mended from his 
tongue." Alas, they come ruined and 
worthless from such a man as this. They 
lose that holy energy by which they are 
to convert the soul and purify man for 
heaven, and sink, in interest and efficacy, 
below the level of those principles which 
govern the ordinary affairs of this lower 
world. 



63 



CHAPTER III. 



The observations contained in the pre- 
ceding chapter make it sufficiently evi- 
dent, that the art of extemporaneous 
speaking, however advantageous to the 
christian minister, and however possible 
to be acquired, is yet attended with em- 
barrassments and difficulties, which are 
to be removed only by long and arduous 
labor. It is not enough, however, to 
insist upon the necessity of this disci- 
pline. We must know in what it con- 
sists, and how it is to be conducted. In 
completing, therefore, the plan I have 
proposed to myself, I am now to give a 
few hints respecting the mode in which 
the study is to be carried on, and obsta- 
cles to be surmounted. These hints, 
gathered partly from experience and part- 
ly from observation and books, will be 
necessarily incomplete ; but not, it is 
hoped, altogether useless to those who are 
asking some direction. 

1. The first thing to be observed is, 
that the student who would acquire facil- 



64 



ity in this art, should bear it constantly 
in mind, and have regard to it in all his 
studies, and in his whole mode of study. 
The reason is very obvious. He that 
would become eminent in any pursuit, 
must make it the primary and almost ex- 
clusive object of his attention. It must 
never be long absent from his thoughts, 
and he must be contriving how to pro- 
mote it, in every thing he undertakes. It 
is thus that the miser accumulates, by 
making the most trifling occurrences the 
occasions of gain ; and thus the ambitious 
man is on the alert to forward his purposes 
of advancement by little events which 
another would pass unobserved. So too 
he, the business of whose life is preaching, 
should be on the watch to render every 
thing subservient to this end. The in- 
quiry should always be, how he can turn 
the knowledge he is acquiring, the sub- 
ject he is studying, this mode of rea- 
soning, this event, this conversation, and 
the conduct of this or that man, to aid the 
purposes of religious instruction. He 
may find an example in the manner in 
which Pope pursued his favorite study. 
" From his attention to poetry," says 
Johnson, " he was never diverted. If 



65 



conversation offered any thing that could 
be improved, he committed it to paper ; 
if a thought, or perhaps an expression 
more happy than was common, rose to 
his mind, he was careful to write it ; an 
independent distich was preserved for an 
opportunity of insertion, and some little 
fragments have been found containing 
lines, or parts of lines, to be wrought 
upon at some other time. 5 '" By a like 
habitual and vigilant attention, the preach- 
er will find scarce any thing but may be 
made to minister to his great design, by 
either giving rise to some new train of 
thought, or suggesting an argument, or 
placing some truth in a new light, or fur- 
nishing some useful illustration. Thus 
none of his reading will be lost ; every 
poem and play, every treatise on science, 
and speculation in philosophy, and even 
every ephemeral tale may be made to 
give hints toward the better management 
of sermons, and the more effectual pro- 
; and communicating of truth. 
He who proposes to himself the art of 
extemporaneous speaking, should in like 
manner have constant regard to this par- 
ticular object, and make every thing co- 
operate to form those habits of mind which 
6* 



66 



are essential to it. This may be done, not 
only without any hindrance to the progress 
of his other studies, but even so as to pro- 
mote them. The most important requi- 
sites are rapid thinking, and ready com- 
mand of language. By rapid thinking I 
mean, what has already been spoken of, 
the power of seizing at once upon the 
most prominent points of the subject to be 
discussed, and tracing out, in their proper 
order, the subordinate thoughts which 
connect them together. This power de- 
pends very much upon habit ; a habit 
more easily acquired by some minds than 
by others, and by some with great diffi- 
culty. But there are few who, should 
they have a view to the formation of such 
a habit in all their studies, might not 
attain it in a degree quite adequate to 
their purpose. This is much more indis- 
putably true in regard to fluency of lan- 
guage. 

Let it, therefore, be a part of his daily 
care to analyze the subjects which come 
before him, and to frame sketches of ser- 
mons. This will aid him to acquire a 
facility in laying open, dividing, and 
arranging topics, and preparing those 
outlines which he is to take with him into 



67 



the pulpit. Let him also investigate care- 
fully the method of every author he reads, 
marking the divisions of his arrangement, 
and the connexion and train of his reason- 
ing. Butler's preface to his Sermons will 
afford him some fine hints on this way of 
study. Let this be his habitual mode of 
reading, so that he shall as much do this, as 
receive the meaning of separate sentences, 
and shall be always able to give a better 
account of the progress of the argument 
and the relation of every part to the others 
and to the whole* than of merely individ- 
ual passages and separate illustrations. 
This will infallibly beget a readiness in 
finding the divisions and boundaries of a 
subject, which is one important requisite 
to an easy and successful speaker. 

In a similar manner, let him always 
bear in mind the value of a fluent and 
correct use of language. Let him not be 
negligent of this in his conversation ; but 
be careful ever to select the best words, 
to avoid a slovenly style and drawling 
utterance, and to aim at neatness, force, 
and brevity. This may be done without 
formality, or stiffness, or pedantic affecta- 
tion ; and when settled into a habit, is 
invaluable. 



68 



2. In addition to this general cultiva- 
tion, there should be frequent exercise of 
the act of speaking. Practice is essen- 
tial to perfection in any art, and in none 
more so than in this. No man reads well 
or writes well, except by long practice ; 
and he cannot expect without it to speak 
well — an operation which is equivalent to 
the other two united. He may indeed 
get along, as the phrase is ; but nut so 
well as he might do and should do. He 
may not always be able even to get along-. 
He may be as sadly discomfited as a 
friend of mine, who said that he had made 
the attempt, and was convinced that for 
him to speak extempore was impossible ; 
he had risen from his study table, and 
tried to make a speech, proving that vir- 
tue is better than vice ; but stumbled and 
failed at the very outset. How could one 
hope to do better in a first attempt, if he 
had not considered beforehand what he 
should say ? It were as rational to think 
he could play on the organ without hav- 
ing learned, or translate from a language 
he had never studied. 

It would not be too much to require of 
the student, that he should exercise him- 
self every day once at least, if not of- 



69 



tener ; and this on a variety of subjects, 
and in various ways, that he may attain a 
facility in every mode. It would be a 
pleasant interchange of employment to 
rise from the subject w T hich occupies his 
thoughts, or from the book which he is 
reading, and repeat to himself the sub- 
stance of what he has just perused, with 
such additions and variations, or criticisms, 
as may suggest themselves at the moment. 
There could hardly be a more useful ex- 
ercise, even if there were no reference to 
this particular end. How many excellent 
chapters of valuable authors, how many 
fine views of important subjects, would be 
thus impressed upon his mind, and what 
rich treasures of thought and language 
would be thus laid up in store. And 
according as he should be engaged in a 
work of reasoning, or description, or ex- 
hortation, or narrative, he would be at- 
taining the power of expressing himself 
readily in each of these various styles. 
By pursuing this course for two or three 
years, " a man may render himself such 
a master in this matter," says Burnet, 
" that he can never be surprised ;" and 
he adds, that he never knew a man faith- 



70 



fully to pursue the plan of study he pro- 
posed, without being successful at last. 

3. When by such a course of study 
and discipline he has attained a tolerable 
fluency of thoughts and words, and a 
moderate confidence in his own powers ; 
there are several things to be observed in 
first exercising the gift in public, in order 
to ensure comfort and success. 

It is advisable to make the first efforts 
in some other place than the pulpit. The 
pulpit, from various causes already alluded 
to, is the most embarrassing place from 
which a man can speak. One may utter 
himself fluently in a spot of less sanctity 
and dignity, who should be unable to sum- 
mon his self possession or command his 
thoughts in that desk, which he never 
names or contemplates, but " filled with 
solemn awe." Let the beginner, there- 
fore, select some other field, until he have 
become accustomed to the exercise, and 
disciplined to self command. Let him, in 
the familiar lectures of the Sunday School, 
or in classes for the biblical instruction of 
young people, or in private meetings for 
social religious worship, when there is less 
restraint upon his powers and he is warm- 
ed by near contact with those whom he ad- 



71 



dresses— let him in such scenes make the 
first rude trial of his gifts. Practice there 
will give him confidence and facility ; and 
he may afterward make the more hazard- 
ous and responsible attempt before a Sab- 
bath congregation. 

4. It has been generally recommended 
to beginners, that their first experiments 
should be hortatory ; and for this end, that 
after having written the body of the dis- 
course, the application and conclusion 
should be left to the moment of delivery. 
Then, it is said, the hearer and speaker 
having become engaged and warm in the 
subject, the former will less observe any 
blemishes and inexactness of language, 
and the latter will have a freedom and flow 
of utterance, which he would be less likely 
to enjoy at an earlier and colder moment ; 
besides, that the exhortation is a much 
easier achievement than the body of the 
discourse. 

It is probable that for some persons this 
rule may be foimd best ; though if I were 
to give one founded on my own experi- 
ence, it would be directly opposed to it. 
1 should esteem it a much safer and more 
successful mode, to attempt ex tempore 
the commencement, than the close of a 



72 



discourse. The commencement, if the 
sermon be worth preaching, is laid out in 
an orderly succession of ideas, which fol- 
low one another in a connected train of 
illustration, or argument, or narrative; and 
he who is familiar with the train, will find 
its several steps spontaneously follow one 
another, and will have no difficulty in 
clothing them in ready and suitable terms. 
But the application is a matter which can- 
not so well be thus arranged, and the parts 
of which do not so closely adhere to each 
other. This makes the actual effort of 
mind at the moment of delivery more se- 
vere. And besides this, it will generally 
be found more difficult, I apprehend, to 
change the passive state of mind which 
exists in reading, for the action and ardor 
of extemporaneous address, than to start 
with this activity at the beginning, when 
the mind in fact is already acting under 
the excitement of a preparation to speak. 
Not to forget, that a young man, who is 
modest because of his youth as much as 
he is bold because of his office, is naturally 
intimidated by the attempt to address with 
direct exhortation those whom he sees 
around him so much older than himself, 
and many of whom, he feels, to be so 
much better. 



73 



I am persuaded, too, that it is a great 
mistake to imagine a closing exhortation 
easier work than the previous management 
of the discourse. I know nothing which 
requires more intense thought, more pru- 
dent consideration; or more judicious skill, 
both in ordering the topics and selecting 
the words. One may indeed very easily 
dash out into exclamations, and make loud 
appeals to his audience. But to appeal 
pungently, weightily, effectually, in such 
words and emphasis, that the particular 
truth or duty shall be driven home and 
fastened in the mind and conscience — this 
is an arduous, delicate, anxious duty, which 
may well task a man's most serious and 
thoughtful hours of preparation. It is only 
by giving such preparation that he can 
hope to make that impression which God 
will bless ; and he that thinks it the easiest 
of things, and harangues without fore- 
thought, must harangue without effect. Is 
it not probable, that much of the vapid and 
insignificant verbiage which is poured out at 
the close of sermons, originates in this no- 
tion that exhortation is a very simple affair, 
to which any body is equal at any 
time ? 

7 



71 



Nevertheless, it must be remembered 
that minds are differently constituted. 
Some may find that mode the best lor them- 
selves, which to me seems the worst. It 
remains therefore for everyone to try him- 
self, and decide, from a proper acquaint- 
ance with the operations of his own mind, 
in what method he shall most probably be 
successful. 

5. It is recommended by bishop Burnet 
and others, that the first attempts be made 
by short excursions from written dis- 
courses ; like the young bird that tries its 
wings by short flights, till it gradually 
acquires strength and courage to sustain 
itself longer in the air. This advice is 
undoubtedly judicious. For one may safe- 
ly trust himself in a few sentences, who 
would be confounded in the attempt to 
frame a whole discourse. For this pur- 
pose blanks may be left in writing, where 
the sentiment is familiar, or only a short 
illustration is to be introduced. As suc- 
cess in these smaller attempts gives him 
confidence, he may proceed to larger ; 
till at length, when his mind is bright and 
his feelings engaged, he may quit his 
manuscript altogether, and present the 



75 



substance of what he had written, with 
greater fervor and effect, than if he had 
confined himself to his paper. It was 
once observed to me by an interesting 
preacher of the Baptist denomination, that 
he had found from experience this to be 
the most advisable and perfect mode ; 
since it combined the advantages of writ- 
ten and extemporaneous composition. By 
preparing sermons in this way, he said, 
he had a shelter and security if his mind 
should be dull at the time of delivery ; 
and if it were active, he was able to leave 
what he had written, and obey the ardor 
of his feelings, and go forth on the im- 
pulse of the moment, wherever his spirit 
might lead him. A similar remark I 
heard made by a distinguished scholar of 
the Methodist connexion, who urged, 
what is universally asserted by those who 
have tried this method with any success, 
that what has been written is found to be 
tame and spiritless, in comparison with the 
animated glow of that which springs from 
the energy of the moment. 

There are some persons, however, who 
would be embarrassed by an effort to 
change the operation of the mind from 
reading to inventing. Such persons may 



76 

find it best to make their beginning with 
a whole discourse. 

6. In this case, there will be a great 
advantage in selecting for first efforts ex- 
pository subjects. To say nothing of 
the importance and utility of this mode of 
preaching, which render it desirable that 
every minister should devote a consider- 
able proportion of his labors to it ; it con- 
tains great facilities and reliefs for the in- 
experienced speaker. The close study of 
a passage of scripture which is necessary 
to expounding it, renders it familiar. The 
exposition is inseparably connected with 
the text, and necessarily suggested by it. 
The inferences and practical reflections 
are, in like manner, naturally and indis- 
solubly associated with the passage. The 
train of remark is easily preserved, and 
embarrassment in a great measure guard- 
ed against, by the circumstance that the 
order of discourse is spread out in the 
open Bible, upon which the eyes may 
rest and by which the thoughts may 
rally . 

7. A similar advantage is gained to the 
beginner, in discourses of a different cha- 
racter, by a very careful and minute divi- 
sion of the subject. The division should 



not only be logical and clear, but into 
as numerous as possible. The great 
advantage here is, that the partitions be- 
any, the speaker is compelled fre- 
quently to return to his minutes. He is 
thus kept in the track, and prevented 
from wandering far in need! -sions 

— that besetting infirmity of unrestrained 
extemporizers. He also escapes the mor- 
g consequences of a momentary con- 
i and cloudiness of mind, by having 
it in his power to leave an unsatisfactory 
train at once, before the state of bis mind 
is perceived by the audience, and take up 
the next topic, where he may recover his 
self p . and proceed without im- 

pediment. This is no unimportant con- 
sideration. It relieves him from the horror 
of feeling obli_ on, while conscious 

that he is saying nothing to the purpose ; 
and at the ne secures the ve. 

it method. 
B . The next rule is, that the whole 
vith the order and connexion of all 
and the entire train of thought, 
be made thoroughly familiar by Drevious 
meditation. The speaker must hare the 

rse in his mind as one whole, v 
various parts are distinctly perceived as 



78 

other wholes, connected with each other 
and contributing to a common end. There 
must be no uncertainty, when he rises to 
speak, as to what he is going to say ; no 
mist or darkness over the land he is about 
to travel ; but, conscious of his acquaint- 
ance with the ground, he must step for- 
ward confidently, not doubting that he 
shall find the passes of its mountains, and 
thread the intricacies of its forests, by the 
paths which he has already trodden. It 
is an imperfect and partial preparation in 
this respect, which so often renders the 
manner awkward and embarrassed, and 
the discourse obscure and perplexed. 
Nemo potest de ea re, quam non novit, 
non turpissime dicere. But when the 
preparation is faithful, the speaker feels at 
home ; being under no anxiety respecting 
the ideas or the order of their succession, 
he has the more ready control of his per- 
son, his eye, and his hand, and the more 
fearlessly gives up his mind to its own 
action and casts himself upon the cur- 
rent. Uneasiness and constraint are the 
inevitable attendants of unfaithful pre- 
paration, and they are fatal to success. 

It is true, that no man can attain 
the power of self-possession so as to 



79 



feel at all times equally and entirely at 
ease. But he may guard against the 
sorest ills which attend its loss, by always 
making sure of a train of thought, — being 
secure that he has ideas, and that they lie 
in such order as to be found and brought 
forward in some sort of apparel, even 
when he has in some measure lost the 
mastery of himself. The richness or 
meanness of their dress will depend on 
the humor of the moment. It will vary 
as much as health and spirits vary, which 
is more in some men than in others. But 
the thoughts themselves he may produce, 
and be certain of saying what he intended 
to say, even when he cannot say it as 
he intended. It must have been observed, 
by those who are at all in the habit of 
observation of this kind, that the mind 
operates in this particular like a machine, 
which, having been wound up, runs on by 
its own spontaneous action, until it has 
gone through its appointed course. Many 
men have thus continued speaking in the 
midst of an embarrassment of mind which 
rendered them almost unconscious of what 
they were saying, and incapable of giving 
an account of it afterward ; while yet the 
unguided, self-moving intellect wrought so 



80 



well, that the speech was not esteemed 
unwholesome or defective by the hearers. 
The experience of this fact has doubtless 
helped many to believe that they spoke 
from inspiration. It ought to teach all, 
that there is no sufficient cause for that 
excessive apprehension, which so often 
unmans them, and which, though it may 
not stop their mouths, must deprive their 
address of all grace and beauty, of all 
ease and force. 

9. We may introduce in this place 
another rule, the observance of which 
will aid in preventing the ill consequences 
resulting from the accidental loss of self- 
possession. The rule is, utter yourself 
very slowly and deliberately, with careful 
pauses. This is at all times a great aid 
to a clear and perspicuous statement. It 
is essential to the speaker, who would 
keep the command of himself and conse- 
quently of his hearers. 

One is very likely, when, in the course 
of speaking, he has stumbled on an unfor- 
tunate expression, or said what he would 
prefer not to say, or for a moment lost 
sight of the precise point at which he was 
aiming, to hurry on with increasing rapidi- 
ty, as if to get as far as possible from his 



81 

misfortune, or cause it to be forgotten in 
the crowd of new words. But instead of 
thus escaping the evil, he increases it ; he 
entangles himself more and more ; and 
augments the difficulty of recovering his 
route. The true mode of recovering 
himself is by increased deliberation. He 
must pause, and give himself time to think ; 
— ut tarn en deliberare non haesitare vi- 
deatur. He need not be alarmed lest 
his hearers suspect the difficulty. Most 
of them are likely to attribute the slowness 
of his step to any cause rather than the 
true one. They take it for granted, that 
he says and does precisely as he intended 
and wished. They suppose that he is 
pausing to gather up his strength. It ex- 
cites their attention. The change of 
manner is a relief to them. And the pro- 
bability is, that the speaker not only re- 
covers himself, but that the effort to do 
it gives a spring to the action of his pow- 
ers, which enables him to proceed after- 
ward with greater energy. 

10. In regard to language, the best rule 
is, that no preparation be made. There 
is no convenient and profitable medium 
between speaking from memory and from 
immediate suggestion. To mix the two is 



82 



no aid, but a great hindrance, because it 
perplexes the mind between the very dif- 
ferent operations of memory and inven- 
tion. To prepare sentences, and parts of 
sentences, which are to be introduced 
here and there, and the intervals between 
them to be filled up in the delivery, is the 
surest of all ways to produce constraint. 
It is like the embarrassment of framing 
verses to prescribed rhymes ; as vexatious, 
and as absurd. To be compelled to shape 
the course of remark so as to suit a sen- 
tence which is by and by to come, or to 
introduce certain expressions which are 
waiting for their place, is a check to the 
natural current of thought. The inevita- 
ble consequence is constraint and labor, 
the loss of every thing like easy and flow- 
ing utterance, and perhaps that worst of 
confusion which results from a jumble of 
ill assorted, disjointed periods. It is un- 
avoidable that the subject should present 
itself in a little different form and com- 
plexion in speaking, from that which it 
took in meditation ; so that the sentences 
and modes of expression, which agreed 
very well with the train of remark as it 
came up in the study, may be wholly un- 



S3 



suited to that which it assumes in the pro- 
nunciation. 

The extemporaneous speaker should 
therefore trust himself to the moment for 
all his language. This is the safe way 
for his comfort, and the only sure way to 
make all of a uniform piece. The general 
rule is certain, though there may be some 
exceptions. It may be well, for example, 
to consider what synonymous terms may 
be employed in recurring to the chief 
topic, in order to avoid the too frequent 
reiteration of the same word. This will 
occasion no embarrassment. He may 
also prepare texts of scripture to be intro- 
duced in certain parts of the discourse. 
These, if perfectly committed to memory, 
and he be not too anxious to make a place 
for them, will be no encumbrance. When 
a suitable juncture occurs, they will sug- 
gest themselves, just as a suitable epithet 
suggests itself. But if he be very soli- 
citous about them, and continually on 
the watch for an opportunity to introduce 
them, he will be likely to confuse himself. 
And it is better to lose the choicest quo- 
tation, than suffer constraint and awkward- 
ness from the effort to bring it in. Under 



84 



the same restrictions he may make ready, 
pithy remarks, striking and laconic ex- 
pressions, pointed sayings and aphorisms, 
the force of which depends on the precise 
form of the phrase. Let the same rule 
be observed in regard to such. If they 
suggest themselves (which they will do, 
if there be a proper place for them) let 
them be welcome. But never let him run 
the risk of spoiling a whole paragraph in 
trying to make a place for them. 

Many distinguished speakers are said to 
do more than this, — to write out with care 
and repeat from memory their more im- 
portant and persuasive parts ; like the de 
bene esse's of Curran, and the splendid 
passages of many others. This may un- 
doubtedly be done to advantage by one 
who has the command of himself which 
practice gives, and has learned to pass 
from memory to invention without tripping. 
It is a different case from that mixture of 
the two operations, which is condemned 
above, and is in fact only an extended 
example of the exceptions made in the 
last paragraph. With these exceptions, 
when he undertakes, bond fide, an extem- 
poraneous address, he should make no 



85 



preparation of language. Language is 
the last thing he should be anxious about. 
If he have ideas, and be awake, it will 
come of itself, unbidden and unsought for. 
The best language flashes upon the speak- 
er as unexpectedly as upon the hearer. It 
is the spontaneous gift of the mind, not 
the extorted boon of a special search. 
No man who has thoughts, and is interest- 
ed in them, is at a loss for words — not the 
most uneducated man ; and the words he 
uses will be according to his education and 
general habits, not according to the labor 
of the moment. If he truly feel, and wish 
to communicate his feelings to those 
around him, the last thing that will fail 
will be language ; the less he thinks of it 
and cares for it, the more copiously and 
richly will it flow from him ; and when he 
has forgotten every thing but his desire to 
give vent to his emotions and do good, 
then will the unconscious torrent pour, as 
it does at no other season. This entire 
surrender to the spirit which stirs within, 
is indeed the real secret of all eloquence. 
" True eloquence," says Milton, " I find 
to be none but the serious and hearty love 
of truth ; and that whose mind soever is 



86 



fully possessed with a fervent desire to 
know good things, and with the dearest 
charity to infuse the knowledge of them 
into others, — when such a man would 
speak, his words, like so many nimble and 
airy servitors, trip about him at command, 
and in well ordered files, as he would 
wish, fall aptly into their own places." 
Rerum enim copia (says the great Roman 
teacher and example) verborum copiam 
gignit; et, si est honestas in rebus ipsis 
de quibus dicitur, existit ex rei natura 
quidam splendor in verbis. Sit modo is, 
qui dicet aut scribet, institutus liberaliter 
educatione doctrinaque puerili, et flagret 
studio, et a natura adjuvetur, et in uni- 
versorum generum infinitis disceptationi- 
bus exercitatus ; ornatissimos scriptores 
oratoresque ad cognoscendum imitandum- 
que legerit ; — nae ille haud sane, quemad- 
modum verba struat et illuminet, a ma- 
gistris istis requiret. Ita facile in rerum 
abundantia ad orationis ornamenta, sine 
duce, natura ipsa, si modo est exercitata, 
labetur.* 

11. These remarks lead to another sug- 
gestion which deserves the student's con- 

* DeOr. iii. 3J. 



87 



sideration. He should select for this ex- 
ercise those subjects in which he feels an 
interest at the time, and in regard to which 
he desires to engage the interest of others. 
In order to the best success, extemporane- 
ous efforts should be made in an excited 
state of mind, when the thoughts are 
burning and glowing, and long to find 
vent. There are some topics which do 
not admit of this excitement. Such should 
be treated by the pen. When he would 
speak, he should choose topics on which 
his own mind is kindling with a feeling 
which he is earnest to communicate ; and 
the higher the degree to which he has 
elevated his feelings, the more readily, 
happily, and powerfully will he pour forth 
whatever the occasion may demand. 
There is no style suited to the pulpit, 
which he will not more effectually com- 
mand in this state of mind. He will rea- 
son more directly, pointedly, and con- 
vincingly; he will describe more vividly 
from the living conceptions of the mo- 
ment; he will be more earnest in persua- 
sion, more animated in declamation, more 
urgent in appeals, more terrible in denun- 
ciation. Every thing will vanish from 



88 



before him, but the subject of his atten- 
tion, and upon this his powers will be con- 
centrated in keen and vigorous action. 

If a man would do his best, it must be 
upon subjects which are at the moment 
interesting to him. We see it in conver- 
sation, where every one is eloquent upon 
his favorite topics. We see it in delib- 
erative assemblies ; where it is those grand 
questions, which excite an intense interest, 
and absorb and agitate the mind, that call 
forth those bursts of eloquence by which 
men are remembered as powerful orators, 
and that give a voice to men who can 
speak on no other occasions. Cicero tells 
us of himself, that the instances in which 
he was most successful, were those in 
which he most entirely abandoned him- 
self to the impulses of feeling. Every 
speaker's experience w T ill bear testimony 
to the same thing ; and thus the saying of 
Goldsmith proves true, that " to feel one's 
subject thoroughly, and to speak without 
fear, are the only rules of eloquence." 
Let him who would preach successfully, 
remember this. In the choice of subjects 
for extemporaneous efforts, let him have 
regard to it, and never encumber himself 



80 



nor distress his hearers, with the attempt 
to interest them in a subject, which excites 
at the moment only a feeble interest in his 
own mind. 

This rule excludes many topics, which 
it is necessary to introduce into the pul- 
pit, subjects in themselves interesting and 
important, but which few men can be trust- 
ed to treat in unpremeditated language ; 
because they require an exactness of defi- 
nition, and nice discrimination of phrase, 
which may be better commanded in the 
cool leisure of writing, than in the prompt 
and declamatory style of the speaker. 
The rule also forbids the attempt to speak, 
when ill health, or lowness of spirits, or 
any accidental cause, renders him inca- 
pable of that excitement which is requisite 
to success. It requires of him to watch 
over the state of his body — the partial 
derangement of whose functions so often 
confuses the mind — that, by preserving a 
vigorous and animated condition of the 
corporeal system, he may secure vigour 
and vivacity of mind. It requires of him, 
finally, whenever he is about entering up- 
on the work, to use every means, by care- 
ful meditation, by calling up the strong 
8* 



90 



motives of his office, by realizing the na- 
ture and responsibility of his undertaking, 
and by earnestly invoking the blessing of 
God — to attain that frame of devout en- 
gagedness, which will dispose him to speak 
zealously and fearlessly. One who has 
been particularly successful in extempora- 
neous efforts, once said to me, " My only 
rules are to study my subject thoroughly, 
and seek for feeling on my knees." 

12. Another important item in the dis- 
cipline to be passed through, consists in 
attaining the habit of self command. I 
have already adverted to this point, and 
noticed the power which the mind pos- 
sesses of carrying on the premeditated 
operation, even while the speaker is con- 
siderably embarrassed. This is, however, 
only a reason for not being too much dis- 
tressed by the feeling when only occasion- 
al ; it does not imply that it is no evil. 
It is a most serious evil ; of little compar- 
ative moment, it may be, when only occa- 
sional and transitory, but highly injuri- 
ous if habitual. It renders the speaker 
unhappy, and his address ineffective. If 
perfectly at ease, he would have every 
thing at command, and be able to pour 



91 



out his thoughts in lucid order, and with 
every desirable variety of manner and ex- 
pression. But when thrown from his self- 
possession, he can do nothing better than 
mechanically string together words, while 
there is no soul in them, because his men- 
tal powers are spell-bound and imbecile. 
He stammers, hesitates, and stumbles ; 
or, at best, talks on without objector aim, 
as mechanically and unconsciously as an 
automaton. He has learned little effec- 
tually, till he has learned to be collected. 
This therefore must be a leading object 
of attention. It will not be attained by 
men of delicacy and sensibility, except 
by long and trying practice. It will be 
the result of much rough experience, and 
many mortifying failures. And after all, 
occasions may occur, when the most ex- 
perienced will be put off their guard. 
Still, however, much may be done by the 
control which a vigorous mind has over 
itself, by resolute and persevering deter- 
mination, by refusing to shrink or give 
way, and by preferring always the morti- 
fication of ill success, to the increased 
weakness which would grow out of re- 
treating. 



92 



There are many considerations besidejs, 
which, if kept before the mind, would op- 
erate not a little to strengthen its confi- 
dence in itself. Let the speaker be sen- 
sible that, if self-possessed, he is not like- 
ly to fail ; that after faithful study and 
preparation, there is nothing to stand in 
his way, but his own want of self-com- 
mand. Let hirn heat his mind with his 
subject, endeavour to feel nothing, and 
care for nothing, but that. Let him con- 
sider, that his audience takes for granted 
that he says nothing but what he design- 
ed, and does not notice those slight errors 
which annoy and mortify him ; that in 
truth such errors are of no moment ; that 
he is not speaking for reputation and dis- 
play, nor for the gratification of others by 
the exhibition of a rhetorical model, or for 
the satisfaction of a cultivated taste ; but 
that he is a teacher of virtue, a messenger 
of Jesus Christ, a speaker in the name of 
God ; whose chosen object it is to lead 
men above all secondary considerations 
and worldly attainments, and to create in 
them a fixed and lasting interest in spirit- 
ual and religious concerns ; — that he him- 
self, therefore, ought to regard other things 



93 



as of comparatively little consequence 
while he executes this high function ; that 
the true way to effect the object of his 
ministry, is, to be filled with that object, 
and to be conscious of no other desire but 
to promote it. Let him, in a word, be 
zealous to do good, to promote religion, 
to save souls, and little anxious to make 
what might be called a fine sermon ; let 
him learn to sink every thing in his sub- 
ject and the purpose it should accomplish 
— ambitious rather to do good, than to do 
well ; — and he will be in a great measure 
secure from the loss of self-command arid 
its attendant distress. Not always — for 
this feeble vessel of the mind seems to be 
sometimes tost to and fro, as it were, upon 
the waves of circumstances, unmanage- 
able by the helm and disobedient to the 
wind. Sometimes God seems designedly 
to show us our weakness, by taking from 
us the control of our powers, and causing 
us to be drifted along whither we would 
not. But under all ordinary occurrences, 
habitual piety and ministerial zeal will be 
an ample security. From the abundance 
of the heart the mouth will speak. The 
most diffident man in the society of men 



94 



is known to converse freely and fearlessly 
when his heart is full, and his passions en- 
gaged ; and no man is at a loss for words, 
or confounded by another's presence, who 
thinks neither of the language, nor the 
company, but only of the matter which 
fills him. Let the preacher consider this, 
and be persuaded of it, — and it will do 
much to relieve him from the distress 
which attends the loss of self-possession, 
which distils in sweat from his forehead, 
and distorts every feature with agony. 
It will do much to destroy that incubus, 
which sits upon every faculty of the soul, 
and palsies every power, and fastens down 
the helpless sufferer to the very evil from 
which he strives to flee. 

After all, therefore, which can be said, 
the great essential requisite to effective 
preaching in this method (or indeed in 
any method) is a devoted heart. A strong 
religious sentiment, leading to a fervent 
zeal for the good of other men, is better 
than all rules of art ; it will give him cour- 
age, which no science or practice could 
impart, and open his lips boldly, when the 
fear of man would keep them closed. Art 
may fail him, and all his treasures of 



95 



knowledge desert him ; but if his heart be 
warm with love, he will " speak right on," 
aiming at the heart, and reaching the 
heart, and satisfied to accomplish the great 
purpose, whether he be thought to do it 
tastefully or not. 

This is the true spirit of his office, to be 
cherished and cultivated above all things 
else, and capable of rendering all its labors 
comparatively easy. It reminds him that 
his purpose is not to make profound dis- 
cussions of theological doctrines, or dis- 
quisitions on moral and metaphysical sci- 
ence ; but to present such views .of the 
great and acknowledged truths of revela- 
tion, with such applications of them to the 
understanding and conscience, as may 
affect and reform his hearers. Now it is 
not study only, in divinity or in rhetoric, 
which will enable him to do this. He 
may reason ingeniously, yet not convinc- 
ingly ; he may declaim eloquently, yet not 
persuasively. There is an immense, though 
indescribable difference between the same 
arguments and truths, as presented by 
him who earnestly feels and desires to 
persuade, and by him who designs only a 
display of intellectual strength, or an ex- 



9G 



ercise of rhetorical skill. In the latter 
case, the declamation may be splendid, 
but it will be cold and without expression ; 
lulling the ear, and diverting the fancy, 
but leaving the feelings untouched. In 
the other, there is an air of reality and sin- 
cerity, which words cannot describe but 
which the heart feels, that finds its way 
to the recesses of the soul, and overcomes 
by a powerful sympathy. This is a dif- 
ference which all perceive and all can ac- 
count for. The truths of religion are not 
matters of philosophical speculation, but of 
experience. The heart and all the spirit- 
ual man, and all the interests and feelings 
of the immortal being, have an intimate 
concern in them. It is perceived at once 
whether they are stated by one who has 
felt them himself, is personally acquainted 
with their power, is subject to their in- 
fluence, and speaks from actual experi- 
ence ; or whether they come from one 
who knows them only in speculation, has 
gathered them from books, and thought 
them out by his own reason, but without 
any sense of their spiritual operation. 

But who does not know how much 
easier it is to declare what has come to 



97 



our knowledge from our own experience, 
than what we have gathered coldly at sec- 
ond hand from that of others ; — how much 
easier it is to describe feelings we have 
ourselves had, and pleasures we have our- 
selves enjoyed, than to fashion a descrip- 
tion of what others have told us ; — how 
much more freely and convincingly we can 
speak of happiness we have known, than 
of that to which we are strangers ? We 
see, then, how much is lost to the speaker 
by coldness or ignorance in the exercises 
of personal religion. How can he effec- 
tually represent the joys of a religious 
mind, who has never known what it is to 
feel them ? How can he effectually aid 
the contrite, the desponding, the distrust* 
ful, the tempted, who has never himself 
passed through the same fears and sorrows? 
Or how can he paint, in the warm colors of 
truth, religious exercises and spiritual de- 
sires, who is personally a stranger to them ? 
Alas, he cannot at all come in contact 
with those souls, which stand most in need 
of his sympathy and aid. But if he have 
cherished in himself, fondly and habitual- 
ly, the affections he would excite in oth- 
ers, if he have combated temptation, and 
9 



98 



practised self-denial, and been instant in 
prayer, and tasted the joy and peace of 
a tried faith and hope ; — then he may 
communicate directly with the hearts of 
his fellow men, and win them over to that 
which he so feelingly describes. If his 
spirit be always warm and stirring with 
these pure and kind emotions, and anxious 
to impart the means of his own felicity to 
others — how easily and freely will he pour 
himself forth ! and how little will he think 
of the embarrassments of the presence of 
mortal man, while he is conscious only of 
laboring for the glory of the ever present 
God! 

This then is the one thing essential to 
be attained and cherished by the christian 
preacher. With this he must begin, and 
with this he must go on to the end. Then 
he never can greatly fail ; for he will 

FEEL HIS SUBJECT THOROUGHLY, AND 
SPEAK WITHOUT FEAR. 



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